The July 2022 issue of The Wagner Journal has been published

The July 2022 issue (vol.16, no.2) of The Wagner Journal, guest-edited by Chris Walton, has been published and contains the following feature articles:

Alex Ross on Wagnerian fantasies reporting Hitler’s death
Kate Hopkins on a Wagnerian novel: Willa Cather’s Song of the Lark
Paula Fourie on Wagnerian spectres in the work of Etienne Leroux
Tash Siddiqui on Richard Wagner and the mystery of Old Compton Street
Interview with Merle Fahrholz and Alvaro Schoeck on adapting Wagner for the young

plus reviews of: Tannhäuser in Wuppertal, Die Walküre in Melbourne, Das Rheingold in Bern; CDs of Wagners last symphonic sketches and a 1987 Siegfried from Stockholm; Anne Kauppala and Martin Knust, eds, Wagner and the North, Frederick Paul Walter’s Annotated ‘Ring’ Cycle, J.P.E. Harper Scott’s The Event of Music History, William H. Pastor’s Three Pillars of Modern Western Culture: Richard Wagner’s Impact on James Joyce’s ’Ulysses’ and Marcel Proust’s ’In Search of Lost Time’ and Michael Trimble, Robert Ignatius Letellier and Dale Hesdorffer, eds, Sudden Death in Opera

www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk

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One of the finest monuments in sound ever to have been raised to the everlasting glory of music. (Claude Debussy on Parsifal)

"The thing about Wagner is that there can be no true success in any production of his operas, only degrees of failure. There is so much in these bloody pieces, all you can do is try to live up to them." (Keith Warner, The Guardian)

"I have never come across an audience with so much hatred, so much anger, such a thirst for revenge. They take everything personally. It makes you a little bit scared, and it's really quite terrifying." (Lance Ryan on the audiences at Bayreuth)

"People sometimes complain that Wagner operas are too long, that they get stiff and sore about 10.30 because they have rushed in to hear one of his works straight from work and are not properly prepared for listening to his music. The audience, as much as the artists, must be prepared for a performance."
(Benjamin Britten to Alan Blyth, Gramophone)

"I was bowled over. It was the year after Wieland Wagner had died; to be able to see his productions was a total knock-out. These bare stagings, where everything was done with lighting. The light changed with the music, and the shadows and patterns seemed as archetypal as the music itself. Nobody had done that on the stage before. I thought it was extraordinary and wonderful."
(Patrick Carnegy to The Guardian)

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